Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5 may be apparently dead as someone who’s recently chest-bursted (although the box-office performance for Alien: Covenant might mean that some conversations are being had about what’s happening to the Covenant follow-up as well…) but he’s not been idle in the time since that project bit the dust.

A teaser trailer has arrived for his new project: Oats Studios, described as an experimental studio putting out a series of experimental short films, and if you’re looking for Alien references you will certainly find them (and Sigourney Weaver too, look!). Check it out:

The plot involves an alternate Vietnam timeline involving monsters, and as the Volume 1 title suggests, more is on the way. Blomkamp is planning to release these films on YouTube and Steam, with the latter being used to sell extras in order to help finance follow-ups.

Mostly free on YouTube etc, but one or two charged items on steam to see if the ecosystem works for film. https://t.co/I7zxa9rgk7

It’s interesting to see a filmmaker playing around with distribution in this way, especially someone like Blomkamp who obviously has mega-budget studio movie experience but is obviously more than capable of cooking up very exciting projects on his own. Which is exactly the plan, as this tweet explaining the Oats Studio name confirms.

Ha good question. The whole point of the studio is to just do what we want. No constraints. So an inexplicable name seems fitting. https://t.co/2fix3y8uwJ

As you can probably tell from this, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on Blomkamp’s Twitter feed, as well as the official Oats Studios one. There doesn’t seem to be a confirmed release date for Volume 1 beyond “Coming Soon” but we can’t wait.